State has history of placeholder picks

Dec. 6, 2012

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Staff writer

When James F. Byrnes resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate in 1941 to become a Supreme Court justice, South Carolina Gov. Burnet Maybank faced a dilemma.

Maybank wanted to run for that seat.

“He wanted someone elderly who wouldn’t get Potomac fever,” said Burnet Maybank III, his grandson and a lawyer in Columbia.

Maybank Sr. settled on Alva Lumpkin, a federal judge from Columbia.

Lumpkin spent 10 days in office, and died.

Other political appointees to the Senate from South Carolina haven’t had such dramatic exits from Washington politics, but none have gone on to become political legends.

Since direct election of U.S. senators began in 1913, South Carolina governors have appointed seven men to finish terms, according to a list compiled by the U.S. Senate. Two ran for the office. None won.

The other five were sent to Washington as placeholders, longtime friends of the governor, doing a public service. Two of them were powerful newspaper figures, including Roger C. Peace of The Greenville News, who succeeded Lumpkin.

“They referred to him as senator for the rest of his life,” said his great-niece, Mary Sterling.

Liz Patterson, a former congresswoman from Spartanburg, said her father, Gov. Olin Johnston, appointed Wilton Hall, owner of the Anderson Independent, because of their longtime friendship.

“He was one of daddy’s best friends from a long way back, way before I was born when daddy lived in Anderson,” Patterson said. “Wilton Hall was definitely a placeholder.”

Gov. Richard Manning III made the first appointment when legendary Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman died. Columbia lawyer Christie Benet served for four months before being defeated in the 1918 election.

When Lumpkin died in 1941, Peace replaced him and served three months. Maybank was elected in 1941.

Three years later, when South Carolina’s other senator, Ellison Smith, died, Hall went to Washington for about two months before Johnston won the seat.

In 1954, Greenville construction company founder Charles Daniel was sent to Washington when Maybank died. He served about four months.

Thomas Wofford, a Greenville lawyer, served seven months in 1956 after U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond resigned to make good on a promise he made to voters in the previous election. Thurmond then was elected as a write-in candidate.

The last time a South Carolina governor appointed a U.S. senator was in 1965 when Gov. Donald Russell effectively appointed himself. He made a deal with Lt. Gov. Robert McNair. Russell would resign so McNair could become governor if McNair would give him the Senate seat.

The time in Washington didn’t last for Russell, though. He was defeated after serving a year and a half.

Thinking about how all of the appointments have unfolded, Patterson said, “The governor certainly has a lot of options.”